With the West Ham captain surely on the move this summer, the Man City midfielder could arrive to take his place.
Insider ExWHUEmployee has claimed that West Ham United may receive a swap deal offer for Declan Rice from Manchester City which includes Kalvin Phillips.
What’s the latest on Declan Rice and West Ham?
The Hammers will no doubt be fully focused on their upcoming Europa Conferences League semi-final against AZ Alkmaar this week.
However, beyond that, the other topic on everyone’s mind is the future of club captain Rice. After all, it seems he will be leaving in the summer with a host of top Premier League clubs linked.
As per a recent report in The Guardian, Manchester United now intends to rival Arsenal for the £60k-per-week England midfielder.
However, it sounds as though Man City is potentially ready to enter the race – as explained by Ex on The West Ham Way podcast.
The insider said (6:12): “100 percent, Guardiola rates Declan Rice – I know that factually, I’ve got sources at Manchester City. I know he rates him.
“I always said at the start as well that Moyes massively rates Kalvin Phillips and he wanted to actually pair the two up at West Ham, Rice and Phillips.
“But you know, apparently we bid £50m for Phillips, but it never got through at Leeds and then he obviously went to Man City after that.
“But I wouldn’t, as I’ve always said, wouldn’t be surprised if Man City do try to offer Phillips for Rice and money.”
Will Kalvin Phillips join West Ham?
As per a recent report in Sky Sports, while the Hammers expect at least £120m for Rice, they could be open to doing a swap deal to help reduce that fee as well.
And Man City could be on the look for a new midfielder as they seem set to miss out on touted target Jude Bellingham who will likely now end up at Real Madrid instead.
And so, with these two developments in mind, it’s not hard to see how Ex’s transfer claim could come to pass this summer.
After all, Moyes has even gone on the record about hoping to sign former Leeds United midfielder Phillips in the past and actually offered more than the £45m he was eventually sold for.
He told the Daily Mail: “We bid more than that. We’re trying to be competitive with the big teams. If we can’t, we have to find another way of keeping up with them.”
Well seeing as Phillips has hardly played for City this season – with just 104 minutes of league action – it seems as though he could be on the market again this summer.
Now with Rice to offer too, perhaps West Ham can finally get that deal done.
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